The present invention relates to a monitoring control network system enabling a load distributed management of monitoring and controlling monitored devices under a monitoring control device from an operation terminal and a monitoring target management server.
With expansions of information communication networks, there arises a necessity of monitoring the monitored devices in distribution in a way that installs a plurality of monitoring control devices for monitoring the monitored devices such as transmission devices serving as network component devices, corresponding to every type and every disposition area of the monitored devices.
A conventional monitoring control network system adopts an architecture as shown in FIG. 1 in order to monitor and control all or a part of monitored devices within a network.
Namely, (1) operation terminals (an operation terminal for A, an operation terminal for B) are installed corresponding to monitoring control devices A, B, respectively. (2) One operation terminal exists, a suite of software (software for A, and software for B) is provided for the respective monitoring control devices, and an operator switches over this suite of running software or a connecting destination. (3) There is provided an integrated monitoring server, connected to all or a plurality of monitoring control devices, for managing batch wise (centralized management) states of monitored devices a1, a2, b1, b2 and pieces of information thereof, and the operation terminal is connected to this integrated monitoring server.
The architecture of the conventional monitoring control network system described above has the following problems. The architecture (1) given above requires the operation terminal for every monitoring control device, with the result that the cost increases and a larger installation area is needed. Further, the operator needs t operate each operation terminal in order to see necessary items of information, and hence an operability declines.
In the architecture (2) described above, when switching over the suite of software for the monitoring control, connections to the plurality of monitoring control devices can not be simultaneously established, and it is therefore impossible to see the necessary items of information at one time. Moreover, in a case where plural pieces of software can be booted simultaneously, this requires a large quantity of resources (a memory, a disk capacity etc) of the operation terminal, and consequently the cost rises.
Further, though it is also the same with the architecture (1) , the operator needs to be aware of which monitoring control device monitors the monitored device and which monitored device is monitored by it, and hence this becomes a factor for a decline of the reliability.
The architecture (3) given above requires providing the integrated monitoring server separately from the monitoring control device, and therefore the cost increases. Moreover, the integrated monitoring server is connected to all the monitoring control devices and unitarily manages pieces of information on the monitored devices. Hence, there is a possibility of causing discordance with the information held by each f the monitoring control devices, resulting in the decline of the reliability. Avoidance of this problem involves a complicated scheme so as not to cause the discordance. Further, the information is converged eventually to one single device (the integrated monitoring server), and therefore it follows that the load is concentrated on the integrated monitoring server.